Second Amendment Work Not Quite Done
Jun 26, 2008 Political
The ruling by the Supreme Court today on the Second Amendment was a good ruling but there is still work to do. Already, proponents of gun control are claiming that the ruling allows them to decide where, when and under what circumstances people may have guns. Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler stated as much today. The reality is, the ruling gave no such restrictions.
The important thing to look at is what the Court was asked to decide. They were asked if gun ownership was an individual right and the case stemmed from a lawsuit over the DC gun ban which makes it a crime to have a functional weapon in one’s own house. The Court ruled that gun ownership is an individual right and that citizens in DC had a right to have them in their homes (in ready to use, functional configuration). That is what they were asked to rule on and that is what they did. There will be future lawsuits to iron out the limit of that individual right.
The reaction from Mayor Fenty of DC and Mayor Daley of Chicago was right out of the liberal playbook. Gavin Newsome of San Francisco also chimed in. They cannot believe the Court ruled this way and wonder how they could have reached such a conclusion. I wonder how any normal person could reach any other conclusion than what the Court did. [My Way News]
All three Mayors cried about the increased violence that would result from the decision and this is just a bunch of crap. These places already have extremely stringent gun laws and look at their murder rates. You see, the people causing those murders are those who are not supposed to have guns or are using them illegally. The Court’s decision deals with law abiding citizens and addresses the ability to deny gun ownership to criminals and the mentally ill.
Gun laws have not stopped the violent crimes in cities where gun control is the most strict. It is simple, criminals do not obey the law. Look at the crime rates in areas where there are strict gun laws and compare them to rural America where gun ownership is widespread (the bitter folks Obama talked about). The reality is, gun control has been a huge failure and has not reduced crime. Crime is reduced in places where the citizenry is armed.
Ask Mayor Daley how is strict gun control has worked out. He had more murders last weekend in his city than my county did all of last year (and this year combined). Ask Mayor Fenty how the decades of gun control in DC has helped his city which is more than the Nation’s Capital, it is the murder Capital. Handgun violence should not exist under the laws that existed there and yet there were countless shootings. Ronald Reagan was shot in DC so the strict gun laws did nothing to prevent that. Ask Gavin Newsome, who wants the justices to visit the housing projects in his city and see the violence, how it is that his city has gun violence with its strict gun laws.
If gun control is the answer and will end violence why do cities with strict gun control allow their police officers to carry guns? If there will be no gun violence there is no need for the police to carry a gun. It is also worth asking why Chicago allows its Aldermen to carry concealed weapons or why gun control advocate Dianne Feinstein of California has a carry permit. Why is it that these people have a Second Amendment right that idiots like Daley, Newsome and Fenty want to deny the rest of us?
We have scratched the surface in this battle but now that the camel has its nose under the tent we will be able to chip away at the unconstitutional gun laws that government has imposed upon its citizens. We will now be able to combat the tyranny of government. We will also be able to instill fear in the liberals. They want your guns so you have no means to resist tyranny. Now that it is decided law that YOU have the right to keep and bear arms (a right I knew I had all the time and will never relinquish) they will have lost a method used to control the citizenry.
If you think liberals are not afraid of gun owners you need to ask why it is the Amendment they attack all the time. Why do they regulate that freedom to death? No other Amendment in the Bill of Rights has the restrictions and impositions on it that the Second Amendment has and that is because it is the very Amendment that allows the average citizen a means of resistance against a tyrannical government.
It would also be interesting to know why liberals immediately attacked this ruling and started interpreting it as a victory for them. Nancy Pelosi said the ruling would not keep DC from regulating guns. Leave it to a liberal to find ways around a law with which he disagrees. Amazingly, whenever the Court makes a ruling that liberals like (abortion, rights for terrorists) it is considered settled by the liberals and not open for debate or discussion. When a ruling affecting the rights of citizens is made in favor of the citizens the liberals immediately fight to get around the right.
So, who are they fighting for? Who do they represent? Why are they so opposed to people having the right affirmed in the Second Amendment.
My prediction is, there will be no blood baths. There will be no increase in gun violence and in places where gun laws are relaxed or repealed there will be a reduction in crime. Professor John Lott has studied this and written about it.
We have won this battle but the war is not over yet.
Tags: gun bans, liberals, rights, Second Amendment, supreme court
Supreme Court Rules on Second Amendment Tomorrow
Jun 25, 2008 General
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will rule, for the first time in its history (on this particular issue), on whether the Second Amendment means an individual’s rights or the collective right of a militia. Anyone with brains knows that this is an individual right. The Bill of Rights discusses those things that the federal government may not take away from the people. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, it says what rights (that have already existed) may not be infringed upon. The Second Amendment uses the words “…the right of the people…” The phrase “the people” is used throughout the Constitution to mean all citizens and not the militia so why would the Second Amendment use of “the people” refer to a militia. Sure, the word militia is mentioned but not as a precondition for gun ownership. I read a comment at a site and I copied it. I cannot remember where I saw it but it is a good description:
All reasonable people fully understand that the Second Amendment clearly guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and declares that there shall be no infringement. It also states that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. As the militia were understood at the time to be all able-bodied men, this amendment therefor[sic] presumes that if all men may be armed, the militia will be armed should it need to defend the commonwealth. Yet, though the armament of the militia proceeds from the armament of the populace, and it is a necessary precondition that if the militia is to be armed, the men must be armed, it is neither necessary nor a condition that the men be members of a militia in order to keep and bear arms.
I always believed that if we want to know what the Amendments mean we should read the words of those who wrote them. They clearly described what they meant when they wrote the words. Go to Walter Williams’ site for a list of quotes from the founders. This should clear up any misconceptions.
The Supreme Court is reported to have decided this in 1939 in the Miller case and that is what lower courts have used to justify upholding gun bans. However, Miller is not settled law because the SCOTUS remanded it back to the lower court and the issue was not about an individual right. Miller claimed he had a right to carry the weapon under the Second Amendment. The Court ruled that the sawed off shotgun did not fit the definition of a military type weapon that would be used by a militia. Since it did not (in the court’s opinion even though sawed off shotguns had been used in the military) Miller’s argument was not valid and the case was remanded. Notice what people ignore. If the gun had been ruled a weapon used by the militia, Miller would have had a right to carry it even though he was not in the militia.
The Court actually did have a ruling that demonstrated guns were an individual right and not a collective militia one. It was in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. When the justices ruled against Scott they wrote:
The Court also presented an argument describing the feared results of granting Mr. Scott’s petition [for freedom]:
“It would give to persons of the negro race, …the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, …the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Wikipedia [emphasis mine]
The Justices stated that if he were a free man he would be allowed to keep and carry arms wherever he wanted which means that all Free Men were allowed to keep and carry arms.
“No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950]
The ruling tomorrow should put an end to this foolish debate about having to belong to the militia to own weapons (but our militia is defined as all men 17-45 and all women in the National Guard so a lot of people should be carrying weapons). I am fairly confident that the Justices will rule that keeping and bearing arms is an individual right but if they don’t there will be a lot of instant criminals in this country.
They can come for my guns, they will get the ammo…
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.”
Adolph Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations 403 (Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens trans., 1961) [from Williams’ site]
Tags: gun rights, militia, Second Amendment
Pizza Hut Employee Suspended for Defending Self
Mar 30, 2008 General
A Pizza Hut employee from Iowa was suspended “until police sort out the details” in a shooting incident. The details are pretty straight forward. A woman, an accomplice of a criminal, placed a order for a pizza. The delivery man, James William Spiers, attempted to deliver the pizza when he was confronted by a man who put a gun to his head. Spiers, who has a permit to carry a handgun, grabbed the assailant’s gun and pulled his own weapon. The attacker was shot three times.
When police arrived at the scene Spiers placed his hands in the air and dropped to his knees and told the police that he had both weapons in his pockets. So far no charges have been filed but Pizza Hut has suspended Spiers. The company has a policy against carrying a weapon, even for those who have a permit to carry one. Pizza Hut believes that denying its employees the right to self defense is the safest policy. As this incident shows, a no weapons policy kept Spiers from being attacked…
I understand that Pizza Hut is allowed to make policy and if Spiers broke the rule the company has a right to fire him. I also believe that the company has a duty to keep its employees safe. It appears that Spiers was the only one interested in his personal safety.
I rarely buy pizza from Pizza Hut. If they end up firing Spiers I will never buy anything from them and I encourage all Second Amendment supporters to do the same.
Pizza Hut officials would have felt better if Spiers had been shot to death so long as he was not carrying a handgun. One of his fellow employees stated:
Howe’s co-worker Kimberly Babis said Spiers should not have been armed on the job, no matter what the safety concern. She said most drivers have the right to refuse a delivery if they feel it could pose danger.
“I don’t understand why the pizza delivery guy had a gun,” she said. “And even if the other guy was trying to rob him, it’s a measly 20 bucks. At least that’s how much our drivers have on them.” Des Moines Register
This attitude is what allows students at colleges like Virginia Tech to become victims. It is the attitude that allows patrons of malls to become victims and it is the attitude that allows crime to blossom. Just submit and they will leave you alone.
James Spiers is alive today because he refused to be a victim. If he loses a job over this then at least he is still alive to find another job.
Tags: crime, pizza hut, Second Amendment, victim
WaPo is Wrong on Right to Bear Arms
Mar 18, 2008 General
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the DC gun ban and they will be asked to decide whether the Second Amendment is an individual right or a collective right that only applies to the militia. Any sand person can read the Second Amendment and tell it is an individual right. Yes it is worded peculiarly but it states that the right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The founders knew that a militia might need to be drawn from the population and that if that were ever required they would be able to draw from citizens who had the right to keep and bear arms. The words THE PEOPLE are used throughout the document and in every other instance they are deemed to mean each individual. Why, in the case of the Second Amendment, do these words have a different meaning?
The Washington Post laments about the upcoming court case and they are obviously in favor of a ruling indicating a collective right and therefore allowing government to make any rule it wants regarding gun ownership. The Post also indicates that if the right is determined to be an individual one then the court should give latitude so that laws may be enacted restricting those rights by regulation. The Post uses invalid arguments to make its case. They indicate that an individual right would allow people to own machine guns. People have not been allowed to own machine guns without costly permits since the early part of the last century. The Post also plainly states that the Second Amendment deserves more stringent treatment than the others (particularly the First) because words harm but bullets are lethal. All items in the Bill of Rights should be treated equally. We may not pick and choose which ones we agree with based on personal likes and dislikes. I suppose the Post would be happy if the courts decided that the press was too free and hurt too many people so they needed to be regulated.
The Washington Post takes it case further by trying to mislead its readers. The Post mocks critics of DC’s gun ban who claim that the city has high rates of gun violence despite the Draconian rules and asks how many more acts of gun violence would exist if we did not have the gun ban. That is easy to figure out but the WaPo is not interested in pursuing the answer because it will negate what they believe. All they have to do is look at the murders rates for the period before the gun ban and during the 25 years the ban has been in effect. It is easy to look at raw numbers (DC has been above pre ban raw numbers for all years but one) however, the true picture is seen when they use a per capita rate. Murders in DC have been at high levels even though population has declined which means there are more murders per 100,000 people during the ban than before it.
It is also important to note that in every state where there are shall issue rules, gun murders have declined. In every place (including overseas) where gun bans have been instituted the gun crime rate has risen and risen drastically. It is not hard to understand that criminals do not obey the law so they will not obey gun laws. That is why crime flourishes in places where there are gun bans. Criminals know that law abiding citizens will not be carrying guns so they look to “gun free” zones for easy victims. They are much more hesitant to attempt criminal activity in places where people carry guns because they know they will be met with force. The WaPo ignores these easily found facts and instead plays on emotions of its readers.
The Supreme Court needs to look past all this rhetoric and finally rule that gun ownership is an individual right and that states must institute shall issue rules. If the Supreme Court rules otherwise then there will be millions of new criminals in this country, the criminals who refuse to submit to government and surrender their weapons.
I say that if they rule gun ownership is a collective right applicable only to the militia then all members of the citizenry who are the militia should take up arms. You see, our country has already defined the militia in 10 USC 311:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
I don’t know why there is an age limit but since the Second is an individual right, as stated in the writings of our founders, it is of little consequence. However, the gun grabbers like those at the WaPo had better be careful what they wish for. If every person who is part of the militia as defined by the federal government started demanding to carry weapons there would be nothing the grabbers could do because the court will have decided that they have that right. I wonder how the folks at the WaPo would feel knowing that their desires put guns in the hands of 17 year olds?
I am predicting that this will be ruled an individual right and that the gun grabbers will go nuts. The liberals will hate it because they want us disarmed because a disarmed people are an enslaved people.
Sources:
John Lott via Fox
Militia Laws
Gun Owners.org
Tags: gun rights, Second Amendment, supreme court
Why We Have the Second Amendment
Jan 11, 2008 Political
This is part of a story from China:
On Monday Wei happened on a confrontation in the central Chinese province of Hubei between city inspectors and villagers protesting over the dumping of waste near their homes.
A scuffle developed when residents tried to prevent trucks from unloading the rubbish, Xinhua said.
When Wei took out his cell phone to record the protest, more than 50 municipal inspectors turned on him, attacking him for five minutes, Xinhua said. Wei was dead on arrival at a Tianmen hospital, the report said. CNN
A man was beaten to death by government officials. Imagine being in DC protesting the war or protesting the anti war idiots when 50 members of our government show up and beat you to death.
An unarmed citizenry is a held in slavery by those in power. Our founders ensured that our right to keep and bear arms was clearly communicated so that we could defend ourselves from invaders and from a tyrannical government.
If government officials tried this in America they would soon find themselves on the business end of a firearm.
Tags: china, Second Amendment, tyranny